What might inspire me, when I come to ponder who the best leader of the Labour party be? Perhaps not whether or not they can smile at the drop of a hat!

Primarily, it might be the link between localism, by which I mean the Thatcherite type, allocating money down for local distribution, which consequently wreaks havoc in periods of low spending, like how the period of 2011-15 might look – a shortfall in state-sponsored libertarianism, if you will – boom, spending cuts and mismanagement.

One hardly ever wanted to throw matches on right whingers’ fuel, but during our booming years there was much public spending waste, throwing money at problems, a brimming kitty was never an issue. Means-testing, tailoring public services to meet the right people, and correcting the ills that Thatcher/Major’s legacy had branded onto the sector, that was what was missed out. But now the question is money again, and the kitty is being starved.

The suspicious argument that Labour HAD to change because times of boom elevated the working class from their chains, that laissez-faire capitalism (so far as we can call the capitalism we have that) had achieved what trade unions had always wanted to achieve, or that the left are the true creators of inequality, and the Disraeli Tories are the ones for equality, working class and the recapitalisation of the poor, those arguments couldn’t be further from the truth. Just think about them; they’re to truth what Icarus was to beach holiday packages.

The US housing bubble bursting can explain debt, but it can not explain the New Labour project of overspending and mismanagement. A change in scene should reflect that the era of new labour has not only passed, it has failed, and we will have to pay for it – and it should be no skin of ones back to admit, as a supporter and member of the party myself, that we will have to pay for New Labour mismanagement.

As Dave rightly says in a blog entry about the left online ‘Sooner or later, purely economic – for the sake of our bread and butter – strikes have to cross the line into politics’. But it ought not to have waited this long. Boom is not merely a supplement to bust, it helps cause it, and it prolongs it. Boom should not be an excuse to spend madly, like a student who spends his entire loan in the first week and is reduced to borrowed beans for the next 11 weeks +.

The Labour party I want to vouch for is not one that operates in a political structure that forgets the people who can not, or even do not, vote for it, or for whose vote they have taken for granted, as was the intention of Blair with the unionised.

Guaranteed, the leadership contest will all be centered on an overcoming of the ‘Blair vs Brown’ day (it even says this on Ed Miliband’s leadership campaign website, I suppose sticking it to his brother), but it should be way more than that. It ought to be a disavowal of the whole NL project, which spans longer than 13 years.

I’m at least encouraged by the words of Former PPS to Gordon Brown, Jon Trickett MP, who has said recently that Labour ought not be the party of the establishment anymore. Austerity and deep cuts to the frontline are compromises, not predications of fairness, this isn’t Labour, and actually, on rhetoric alone, this isn’t even New Labour (creators of the loose use of the word ‘fairness’). All parties have claimed they’ll be tough on the banks, but lets see them dance to the tune of the working class for a change, let the only austerity package be for the mouldy ol’ establishment political system of compromise, aptly played out currently by the Libservatives.

There is no other minority group in the UK like Muslims that you can make crass and bigoted generalisations about, and get away with it. Perhaps Roma people, but they are rarely written about as much. Not even Poles get the treatment like they used to. I want to illustrate this point through a recent article by the Telegraph's Andrew Gillian, which scre […]

Amnesty International UK say they no longer consider it appropriate to share a platform with CAGE after their recent comments. About time. Last week, Cage director Asim Qureshi was invited on to the BBC to justify his comments on Mohammed Emwazi and debate other stances the group have taken. He went from bad to worse. […]

Imagine this scenario. A white atheist kills a Muslim couple in cold blood. The media speculates endlessly about the "factors" that drove him to kill them: apparently he had a parking dispute with them; they dressed and talked funny; he was lonely and maybe they did something to provoke him? When this actually happened a few weeks ago, called the C […]

There are usually two kinds of people who like to commentate on foreign policy matters: those who oppose any military 'intervention' in the affairs of other countries; and those who have no problems advocating military intervention and will always defend such action. I happen to be in a third, lesser-known category of people who thinks military int […]

If you watch ISIS's videos you are complicit in its terrorism, says Nesrine Malik at the Guardian. Sorry, but this is ludicrous for various reasons. I have watched a fair amount of ISIS videos, unapologetically, and here are several reasons to do so.

Waterproofing implies applying a thick waterproof layer to the surface of the building structures and commercial/residential facilities to ensure thorough protection from water and corrosive liquids. Waterproofing boosts efficient operation of buildings, structures and equipment, increases their reliability and useful life. From a functional point of referen […]

Ultrasonic cleaning – method of cleaning the surface from solid and liquid contaminants is based on the excitation of ultrasonic frequency in the washing solution. The scientific basis for the creation and development of technology equipment ultrasonic cleaning laid in the field of acoustic cavitation conducted at the Acoustics Institute named after Academic […]

Basically gantry hoists are used to move lengthy and bulky objects and typically taken advantage of at industrial warehouses of large area or open construction sites. Gantry hoist construction is in demand in hangars and workshops of enterprises engaged in production of concrete products, freight yards. In addition, the cranes are widely used to perform […] […]

NOTE FROM IAIN: This is an article written for my West Ham Till I Die blog by one its readers whose pen name is ‘Iron Liddy’. She has written several articles for the site before, but none which has attracted the level of interest or comment that this one has. When you have finished reading the piece below, click HERE and read through the more than 300 comme […]

I was in a taxi in Edinburgh this morning, and got talking to the driver, as you do. “Who are you going to vote for,” I asked after a while. “I’ve always voted Labour, but I don’t think I’m going to this time,” he replied. “I imagine it’ll be the SNP then,” I suggested. “Never, ever. No, I think Cameron has done a good job in turning round the economy, so I […]

I’m in Edinburgh this weekend to attend a wedding. I’m in a very nice hotel and they let me check in early. So far so good. You may recall that a couple of weeks ago I had to have an unexpected operation. It all went well, but every day I have to go to my doctors to have the wound dressed. I will spare you further detail. But it’s a very simple two minute pr […]

News that Russell Brand is not coming to UAL to offer solidarity to the students occupying-the-comfy-sofas -in-a-stand-against-austerity has hit hard. Either that or it is the post-sugar high comedown after all the sweets. The party hat wearing revolutionaries will […]

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the government’s smart meter agenda is on track be the biggest IT money drain yet. Techno Guido is just scratching the surface, but bundles of money is being spent on ‘Smart Energy GB’, the organisation […]